


Runs in the Family

by Shayvaalski



Series: The Kids Are Alright [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Crack, I Don't Even Know, Kid Fic, M/M, OFC - Freeform, Oh My God, Original Character(s), Parentlock, Post Reichenbach, Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-11
Updated: 2012-03-11
Packaged: 2017-11-01 18:57:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/360148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shayvaalski/pseuds/Shayvaalski
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two months after James Moriarty is dead and buried, he and Seb Moran move back to Ireland.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Runs in the Family

**Author's Note:**

> This is crack. It is also one of my immovable headcanons for Jim and Seb. I am not sorry. Expect more.

Two months after James Moriarty is dead and buried, they move back to Ireland, a small town close enough to Dublin that they can get there in an hour if they want, in a tiny house with a big back garden.

"It's only for a few months," says Jim, as Seb (flat on his back under the leaking sink) drops a hammer and curses. "Just until things die down, Sebby."

"Fine, boss." Sebastian is already thinking about where they're going to open a bank account, which grocery store he'll frequent. He'd liked the look of the smaller one, but that really does mean Jim can never come shopping, it's hard enough to keep him from gleefully destroying things in a shop with wide aisles and plenty of room. He shoves his hair out of his face, half-listens to Moriarty's monologue, themed as usual around Sherlock, and wonders if the pub is hiring. 

The small kitchen is full of early-afternoon sunlight, and they are only halfway to unpacked, because Jim is easily distracted. Seb likes it here. He can keep Jim (who is now James Moran, and they are partners, because the best disguises are the ones that lie close to the reality of the situation) safe and protected, for as long as need be, and there is no way they can be found.

 

The pub isn't hiring, but he sits down for a drink with the owner anyway, and she takes a long look at him (tall and blond and strong) and tells him that the local moving company is always looking for people, and this suits Seb down to the ground, and she even gives him directions.

"And be sure to mention that you're gay," she says with a wink when he gets up to leave, and it startles him because he's not, not really, but then of course he'd mentioned Jim as his boyfriend, just like they'd discussed him doing, and of course people are going to assume. “She likes to hire queer folk, if she can.”

Seb walks out into the slow twilight, and it's not that late, so he walks the four blocks over to ó Nualláin Movers and knocks on the door frame. The door itself is open to the air, and a freckled woman with dark curly hair waves to him from the desk. "Ailish called and said you might be by," she says, with an accent almost American in its vowels. "It's always nice to have new neighbors, Mr. Moran, and we were wondering, weren't we, when you'd show your face." She stands to shake his hand, grinning.

Three quarters of an hour later Sebastian had a job starting in two weeks and a friend, and it's nice, he thinks, feeling like an ordinary man, even if he is going home to a sociopath, even if that is the only life he wants. He could probably get a cab or catch the bus back to the house, but it's warm outside, and it's not that far a walk, and it'll be good for him go know the surrounding countryside.

Seb stretches, enjoying the feeling of not needing to keep to the alleyways and shadows for the first time in five years, and goes home.

 

It takes then two weeks to get unpacked and comfortable in their routine, which Seb does his best to set in place quickly so Jim has time to adapt before he meets anyone else. There's a few rough days where Sebastian thinks, between flinging his boss at walls and repairing chairs, that they are going to have to move, that living in one place is unsustainable, but by the time Seb is getting ready to go to work at the start of the third week Jim is bruised and bloody but calm.

He's supposed to be a writer so he is sitting in the corner of the living room, feet up on his desk, laptop open. (Jim, playing a part, plays it totally, and Seb is unsurprised to see he's actually been writing something--it wasn't that long ago that there were technical manuals sitting on the bedside table and beside the couch, v-necked shirts and Seb's dogtags instead of suits and ties.) Sebastian shrugs into his jacket and says, "Gonna be alright without me?"

Jim appears to take him seriously, flexing his fingers, lip between his teeth while he thinks. "Yes. Now go to work, Sebby, you're the _man_ of the house now." He flutters his eyelashes, and Seb takes Jim's face in both his hands and kisses him. "Don't get cocky with me, boss."

"No, that's _later_ ," says Jim against his mouth and giggles, fingers curling around Seb's wrists and Seb hits him, but not hard. They stay like that for the space of a heartbeat, and then Jim pulls back a little, and Sebastian steps away.

"I'll see you tonight," he says, taking the keys off their hook and putting a hand on the doorknob. Then, as an afterthought, "Try to behave." Jim waves him off (yes, yes, I know) and Sebastian shuts the door behind him and goes to start the car.

 

By the time he drives back up their long driveway, it's almost full dark and the kitchen windows are blazing with light. Jim's managed not to set anything on fire on his first full day alone, and the house is still standing, and Seb's heart lifts a little. The last year had been bad, very bad, with Moriarty something like a force of nature, but things have been calming with Sherlock dead, and the quiet surrounding their home seems like a good sign.

And then Sebastian opens the back door. Jim is sitting on the counter, kicking his heels against the (just redone, goddamnit _boss_ ) cabinets, and Seb spares a moment to wonder if it's worth the trouble to try and train or bribe him out of it before he automatically turns and follows Moriarty's gaze.

There's a tall stool Seb doesn't recognize pulled up to the kitchen table, and on it (with her toes hooked into the rungs, and a cup of tea in both her small hands) is a girl who can't be much more than six, unsmiling, with something so familiar about her face that Sebastian immediately begins trying to remember where he's seen it before. He hears Jim laugh, low and pleased, and whips around, furious, because Jim had _promised_ , after the last time, no more kids, he might not be human but Sebastian _is_ , and it's irrelevant that he would have pulled the trigger if told, he doesn't want to be in a situation where that's even an option ever again.

Jim holds up both his hands, but Seb's fingers are already knotted in his shirt, and he is almost snarling when Jim says, casually, "It's not good for children to see their parents fight, Sebby, I read it in a book, we need to provide—" he hesitates, head tilted "—'a loving and stable environment for growth'. So let me _go_ , right now." And his tone alters just a little on the last few words, and Seb backs up a step. 

"I don't know where you got her, boss," he says, soft, "but you bring her back there right now. You told me we had to be _careful_."

"Don't tell me what to do, Sebastian." (His voice the same as before, eyes dark, and then he smiles.) "And there's nowhere to bring her back to, don't be silly. She's ours. Our daughter."

Seb finds himself wordless, because there is nothing, absolutely nothing to be said to that, and Jim begins laughing, not the mad laugh but the proper one, Jim-from-IT getting a joke, and slides off the counter. Seb turns away, because he has bigger problems right now, and sits down across from the half-familiar little girl, doing his best to look smaller, and kind, and harmless. He's good with kids, and she meets his eyes straight-on, and a little alarm bell starts going off in the back of his head, _where_ has he seen her before?

"Hey," he says, ignoring Jim, who has come to stand behind her. "Can you tell me who your mum and da are? And maybe where they live?"

“Jim and ‘Bastian Moran," she replies, and although her voice is soft it's clear, and there's no hesitation in it. "And we live here."

"I'm Mum," says Jim, helpfully, putting his hands on the girl's thin shoulders. "I’ve always fancied myself as the maternal type." He smiles, and so does the child, and Seb sees it, suddenly, sees the way their mouths curl up in exactly the same way, the yawning dark in the back of both their eyes, and only five years of holding his tongue around Jim keeps him from saying Oh, my god. 

Instead he stares at the steaming cup of tea she's holding (because tea needs boiling water and boiling water requires a kettle which necessitates, Christ, lighting the gas under the range) and says, just to be saying something, "Did you let Jim use the stove?"

She shakes her head, looking vaguely horrified, and Jim squeezes her shoulders gently and says to Seb, with just a hint of command, "I told you. She's our daughter. Mine _and_ yours."

Sebastian picks up Jim's untouched cup of tea, takes a sip to steady himself, and for a seven, _maybe_ eight-year-old it tastes like she knows what she's doing, and shit, he's starting to take this seriously, they can't raise a kid, not in a house that also contains Moriarty, and yet--

"What's your name?"

"See-oh-bahn," she says, and Seb has to puzzle through the syllables for a moment before coming up with Siobhan. She is watching him closely. 

"Do you mean--"

"Sebby." Jim's voice is firm. "She knows what she means." Their eyes lock over her head, black and gray-green, and Seb is not ready for this, to be a dad, not so quickly, not to a child he knows nothing about, whose face had gone as blank as Jim's in a dangerous mood for just a second before Seb was interrupted. Sebastian starts to say something but Moriarty shakes his head, the slightest of movements, and the two of them are quiet for the space of a handful of heartbeats.

"There's no point asking how you managed this, is there." 

"Well, Seb, when a mum beats a dad until he begs and then they _fuck_ , a very special thing happens—"

Sebastian puts his hands over Siobhan's ears, and this is not going to be easy, keeping the two of them in check, she is so like him, but she's also still young, he thinks, and maybe this will be alright, Seb can make sure she learns to cope early.

"--and when the mum and dad have settled down in a nice little safehouse the stork comes back with their daughter, shouldn't your parents have _given_ you this talk, Sebby?"

"You have no idea how much I wish they had." Siobhan is tugging his hands away from her ears, examining the gun callouses and various healed cuts with unchildlike interest. "We don't even have a bed for her. And what are we going to do about school?"

Jim reaches down, traces the long scar on the back of Seb's left wrist. "That one's from a knife, pet," he tells their daughter, and Siobhan nods, and he can actually _see_ her store the information away. If it were just Jim, Sebastian thinks, he would take his chances and refuse, but her small fingers are holding his and when he looks up into Moriarty’s dark eyes, Seb finds he does not have a choice. Jim puts his hand down over both of theirs, shockingly gentle, and hell, families are made of worse things than this. 

"We'll manage, Sebastian. I hear most parents do."

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published March 11 2012; publication date changed to make it correctly display as the first work; I have no idea why it didn't before.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Bad Blood](https://archiveofourown.org/works/361423) by [andthebluestblue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/andthebluestblue/pseuds/andthebluestblue)




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